


Dynamic

by moroseconcept



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-22 19:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12489316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moroseconcept/pseuds/moroseconcept
Summary: Keith is called back to the Castle of Lions because they can't form Voltron without five paladins.Shiro's leadership is called into question. Lance's ability to continue as a paladin is called into question. The whole team dynamic is completely displaced and the damage may never be undone





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Post season 4.  
> I have this idea where basically tensions between Lance and Shiro come to a head with dire consequences.  
> There's going to be another lion shuffle and there's a lot of suffering in the meantime.  
> Endgame klance if you squint.  
> Chapters will probably be short, but hopefully worth the read.  
> Feed me comments please.

The mission to Biyli had been successful. No one had died and no one had been left behind. He had downloaded the information he was required to and made it back to the ship without any hiccups, as had the other two Blades he went along with. They should have arrived back at headquarters and been free to immediately rest which was protocol, but instead, Kolivan was waiting for them, flanked by a handful of masked Galra. Eguk and Rao were dismissed, leaving Keith staring up at the leader of the Blade of Marmora with an inquisitive frown. Kolivan gestured to a small black ship sitting ready a few meters away.  
“Your presence is required at the Castle of Lions. Voltron needs you.”  
“What? What happened to--” Kolivan lifted a hand, silencing Keith’s sudden panic.  
“They asked that I give them the courtesy of explaining the situation. You are to leave immediately. Given their current coordinates, you should reach them in only a few vargas”  
Keith handed off the memory chip he’d filled on Biyli to Kolivan, then darted into the sleek, small ship and took off without another word.  
A million things came to mind, a million possibilities filling up his brain. Every single one of them was worse than the one before it and for a brief moment Keith found himself empathizing with Slav’s nearly constant anxiety, but his musing was quickly drowned by the overwhelming silence surrounding him in the void of space.

The ship set down with a quiet rush of air in the lion hangar and Keith jumped out of it, still just as riled and confused as he’d been when Kolivan had sent him on his way. He ran the length of the bay with the single minded focus of determining what had happened, slowing to a stop just before he reached the door. A low rumbling had started to fill his head, a fiery intensity licking up his spine to fill his awareness. It coalesced behind his eyes like a migraine and the rumble became miserable crooning that clenched his heart and made him sick with a guilt that Keith knew wasn’t his own. He turned slowly back towards the red lion, reeling when his eyes finally landed on the beast.  
Red’s paws and mouth were scored and scorched, blast marks blackening the metal like it was ink on paper. The whole right side of Red’s jaw hung low and loose, fractured and cracked like broken glass, leaving a hole that exposed the cockpit. The lion’s eyes flashed dimly, head shifting where it rested against the hangar floor, like the guilt Keith felt was weighing her down. As she settled again, his eyes returned to hole in her head to the tiny bit of the pilot’s chair he could see. A shiver ran down his spine, curled his toes. The deep, jarring crimson he could see was not the red of his lion. It was dark, horrible red of blood.

Keith ran as fast as he legs would carry him, unsure of how he even reached the medical bay. The healing pods were all settled in the floor, inactive and the beds unoccupied. He turned again, panic not gripping his insides and twisting them until he was sure a single jarring movement would set him off and make him puke.  
“Whoa there, man!” Keith jolted, turning around to face whomever had gripped his arm and effectively stopped his mindless running. He relaxed after a moment, recognizing Matt. The man looked tired and tense.  
“What happened to--” Keith stopped, turning away from Matt when he caught the sound of shouting. It was a familiar voice. A voice that was normally warm and warbling with laughter and goodwill, but now it was embittered with rage, shaking and hoarse. Keith had never heard Hunk like this before. He moved up the hall slow and silent, listening. Matt was still holding his arm and Keith appreciated the grip. It anchored him to whatever was happening, kept him from spiralling up and away into his own head just like Lance had before. Shiro’s voice joined the din, loud and sharp.  
“No! You listen!” Hunk bellowed and there was the sound of a sharp impact like he’d hit something. “All you’ve been doing for months is blowing him off and calling all his ideas stupid! All you’ve done is shut him down for weeks! This wouldn’t have happened if you had just LISTENED to him!”  
“This wouldn’t have happened if he’d followed orders!” Shiro bit back, his voice wiry in a way that Keith knew meant he was very close to snapping.  
“Your orders were WRONG AND HE KNEW IT!” Hunk’s voice cracked as he howled and Keith shuddered, knowing he would have bowed to the yellow paladin’s fury long before it reached this point. The rush of footsteps approaching had Keith tensing and he and Matt had to step to the side to avoid being knocked over by the juggernaut Hunk was as he stumbled into the hall. His steps faltered and he looked at Keith with wide red rimmed eyes, tears still openly falling, then he looked away like seeing Keith had stung him and continued down the hall in a renewed rush.  
Silence reigned for hours, for eons, smothering and devastating before Matt spoke in a small voice so much like Pidge when she spoke about finding her family or returning to her mother.  
“Lance was on a solo mission. He found a group of little kids that were set to be executed because they were half Galra. He said he could get them out and finish his mission. Shiro told him that he couldn’t afford the risk and…” Matt sighed heavily. “He wasn’t doing it to be cruel, but Lance wouldn’t back down and their argument cost him the window of time he had to move safely. He got back to the red lion, was evacuating, but then we lost contact. Communication signal went dead. When Red showed up like that, without a pilot…whoa hey!”  
Matt grabbed hold of Keith’s side, steadying him and guiding him to lean against the wall. They slid to the floor together, Keith curled in on himself and Matt kneeling over him. Lance was so important to all of them. This had to be devastating to everyone, if Hunk’s behavior was any indicator. Hell he’d basically become another brother to Pidge. Oh god, Pidge. Keith looked up at Matt with renewed fear, grief making it sting all the more.  
“Where’s Pidge? Is she okay?”  
“Katie hasn’t left her station since we lost his signal. I’ve been making her eat and sleep as best I can but...she’s sure she can find him. I can’t break her focus at all.” Matt looked stricken, but smiled a little and so did Keith as he nodded along.  
“Lance was the only one who ever seemed to be able to get her to leave a project in the middle of things.” Keith was surprised by his voice. It sounded watery and high pitched, frail in a way he never let himself be. The burning of his eyes made sense then. He was crying.

He never should have left.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 2, if you can call it that.  
> Not betad. 
> 
>  
> 
> Please feed me comments

When Keith finally reigned in his emotions, shock and grief so much more visceral than he could remember experiencing before, Matt was seated against the wall next to him and Shiro was standing opposite them looking down at Keith with an unfamiliar, unreadable expression. Keith sniffled and rubbed at his eyes roughly. The abrasive material covering his hands scratched across his cheeks so they burned even hotter beneath his adopted brother's inscrutable gaze. Finally, Shiro knelt and squeezed his shoulder and some of the softness Keith recognized returned to Shiro's features.  
Matt pushed off the wall and, after ruffling Keith's already unkempt hair a bit, walked away. He'd been waiting to say something, Keith had felt it in the space between them, but hadn't been able to settle down enough to let him until Shiro appeared. Did Matt not want to speak about it in front of him? Why would he keep a secret when they'd once been so close? Matt rounded the far corner and Keith turned his attention back to Shiro, let the other pull him to his feet and into a quick hug.  
“Shiro, what happened?” His voice was rough and muffled against the other's muscular shoulder. “Why haven't you gone to get him? Why call me in first?”  
Shiro separated from him and Keith caught sight of an annoyed, angry grimace before his features schooled into something smooth and neutral.  
“Part of Lance's job was to detonate a bomb in the energy core of the base he was at. All that's left is a floating pile of scraps. And security in that quadrant is bound to have doubled since he blew his cover. They're expecting us to try and retrieve his body.”  
The clinical tone and choice of words shook down Keith's spine and settled deep in his core, burning and cold all at once, gripping and twisting his insides like stretched taffy. There was a wrongness to it, not just in Shiro's behavior but in the finality of his phrasing.  
Red rumbled behind his eyes abruptly and Keith found himself glaring at Shiro, his lion's rage steering him like he was the ship with no real control.  
“You're wrong. He's not dead. The lions would know. I would know. He's out there and we have to find him, Shiro.”  
Shiro rebuffed his declaration with all the dismissiveness and flippancy of the a general at the Garrison, clicking his tongue and saying things weren't that simple like he knew better when really he had no argument. They argued back and forth about it. Shiro, saying he didn't want to fight but not budging an inch, and Keith getting more frustrated by the moment. He stormed away from the conversation, a flurry of black torrential energy raging down the hall with angry tears burns his eyes. He wasn't about to let Shiro see him cry, not like this.

His pace slowed eventually and he meandered through the castle unsure of his purpose or place. He was awash in a tide of wrongness, no set goal or errand, mulling over the options available and trying not to stew on Shiro's apparent unwillingness to bend.  
Coran fell into step beside him at some point in the walked in silence for a few minutes before the old Altean started in on a story that Keith did not listen to.  
“My point, son...” Keith finally tuned in when Coran stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “My point is that I've done it before and I don't think it will be too hard another black paladin busy while someone sneaks off to look at things they shouldn't.”  
He winked at Keith, with soft sad eyes that didn't match his smirk.  
“Get number five to with you. She hasn't left her station since.”

The most jarring thing about Pidge’s appearance on the main deck wasn’t the fact that she was still in her armor after what Keith learned had been two days since they lost contact with Lance. It wasn’t the frantic movement of her hands or the twitchy bounce of her leg like her tiny body couldn’t contain her frantic mind. It wasn’t even the mumbled apologies and promises directed toward Lance or the ‘come on come on come on’ that filled the silence while something was processing.  
The most jarring thing to Keith was that when he had approached, she’d stopped moving altogether and turned her head to him slow enough that Keith swore he could hear her joints creaking. Her eyes were dull and unfocused. Her complexion was clammy and there was a thin sheen of sweat on her skin. She was literally working herself sick.

“Let's go.” Keith didn't wait for Pidge to come back to reality from the unfathomable matrix of her mind. He hauled her to her feet and smacked a hydration pouch into her hands the steered her out off the deck. When she'd taken a few sips and finally seemed to actually see Keith, he offered her a couple of small pills from basic first aid kits stationed all over the castle. Nicknamed ‘space aspirin’ because no one but Coran seemed to be able to say the real name, the tiny green pills were a cure-all: vanquishing low grade fevers, stomach aches, and fatigue, and leaving only an aftertaste like sawdust and an itchy tongue behind.  
“Coran is covering for us.” Keith explained, trusting Pidge to follow his line of thought despite the long pause. He steered her into the hangar.  
The entered from the side, relatively close to the green lion and Keith's tiny black ship. He saw Matt at a distance guiding Hunk out of the hangar, heard the faint echo of stifled sobs. The rounded Green’s massive paw and Keith could see the array of equipment attached to Red. They'd been trying to do repairs, to clean her. He could feel her mixed appreciation and guilt.

“Uh where are you going?” Pidge looked at him from the green lion’s mouth. Keith gestured at the ship he'd arrived in, brow furrowed. It was sleek and black and small and not a giant lion that someone would definitely notice was missing. Pidge crossed her arms.  
“No. Green has cloaking and room for two. I'm not getting in that clown car style with you. Come on.”  
Cloaking. Keith had forgotten about that. He marched into the green lion’s cockpit, braced against the seat as the robotic beast rose to its feet and launched into space, leaning over to watch Pidge fly and discuss their plan.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Mentions of child death. It's nothing to explicit, just a vague description, but it's still present so keep that in mind.

The location of Lance’s mission had been a tiny planet, more of an asteroid really, and the base on it was only identified with a series of numbers rather than a name. 07-90401 was just as Shiro had predicted: a floating cloud of debris. Unlike his prediction though, the whole quadrant of space around it was void of Galra activity, abandoned like it was unneeded and forgotten. The main body of the dwarf planet had broken into three parts, two of which were crumbling even as the green lion approached, but the third was still mostly intact. The warped black metal of that remained clinging to it was twisted outward and bent at odd angles, some of the violet lights still flickered with residual energy.  
“There’s still a signal from his armor coming from there.” Pidge murmured, looking between the window that showed the view outside the lion and a smaller screen to the right showing a tiny blue dot that lit up at uneven intervals. “We’ll start there.”  
The green lion set down smoothly and both paladins closed the visors on their helmets, felt the rest of the suit seal together to protect them from the lack of environment. Keith’s mask obscured his face just like every other Marmora suit and Pidge frowned at him as they moved towards her lion’s mouth. The mask and uniform just made him feel separate from the rest of them and the last thing she wanted right now as to feel that isolation. She bumped his side with her shoulder and hopped off the ramp into the dust. He had his knife out, like it would do them any good in a ranged attack.

Gravity around what was left of the base was substantially diminished, unstable. The were fragments of metal and stone, dead robot sentries, floating just a few inches off the ground in spots. It seemed that her and Keith’s upright posture focused their gravity enough to hold them down, but it made walking difficulty. They resorted quickly to their jetpacks, making their way through the curled steel that had once been a door.  
More smoke hanging in the diminished atmosphere, not enough air to do more than tease at life. More mangled bodies of sentries, warped and broken. Some of them were melted to walls, some shattered practically beyond recognition. They made their way in silence toward the center of the base, the epoch of destruction clear as the metal warped further, ballooned outwards or collapsed inwards. Just before the reached the core, they found what looked to have been a lab, tiny cells with shattered windows. Only a few were occupied and all the tiny forms within were curled up and cold, hanging limply just off the floors of their cells. Pidge sucked in a breath, scanning the cells without looking at them, confirmed no signs of life, then turned back the way they had come in a rush. Keith lingered for a moment, trembling, remembering what Matt had told him at the castle.  
“Pidge wait.” His voice crackled when he spoke, and he cleared it before trying again. Pidge had stopped and turned to him, huddled in on herself and clearly trying not to look at the wall of cages.  
“Pidge, he was trying to save these kids wasn’t he? Lance has to be somewhere close.”  
“I wouldn’t know.” Her voice was clipped and tight. “The signal from his armor hasn’t gone off again since we landed.”  
Keith winced at the watery way she spoke, the way she fidgeted and tapped at the screen of her holographic computer almost desperately. He moved closer, wanted to comfort her but didn’t know what to do. Lance would have known. Lance was always there to offer the most obvious solution that everyone had somehow overlooked, able to pick up what needed to be done and how to do it. It didn’t matter if it was the heat of battle or an upset teammate, Lance always seemed to be right around the corner with an answer.  
What were they missing? What was so clearly a sign that they had overlooked it entirely? He’d tried to escape, had made it to Red before something awful had happened and the blue paladin had been forced to retreat back into the base. He would have come back for those children and if he couldn’t get them out of those cells he would have tried to find away to shield them from the blast.  
Keith cast his gaze up the hall, past the empty cells. Further inside, there was a pair of doors to one side bulging outwards, curled at the seam where they came together but holding strong. The light from beyond them was a soft blue, almost white.   
“There.” Keith choked out, turning Pidge and moving toward the light as one. There was frost coming from the other side, spreading over the warped metal. “It’s gotta be him. We’ve got to open it.”  
Pidge plugged into the scanner on the wall, watched it light up the misshapen doorway. It groaned as it tried to open. Something cracked. Keith jammed his activated blade into the tiny opening, felt the chips of ice it knocked loose bounce of his mask and armor. His mother would be ashamed, the Blade furious, if they saw him using his knife this way--as a crowbar, but he didn’t stop. He twisted it between the ice and the metal. He brought up a foot and pushed on the edge of the door, trying to get further leverage to force it open. He jolted, almost jumped back when the vibrant green glow of Pidge’s bayard caught on the metal just above his foot. He looked over at her, saw the fiery look in her eyes. She pulled the green cord taut, then kept pulling. The ice and metal groaned and with a sudden burst of noise, the frozen barrier shattered like so much glass. The door pulled open, scraping along the wall as it moved into damaged wall with an awful shriek.  
“Lance!” Keith turned into the open doorway, frantic energy mounting at Pidge’s wail when she rushed past him. He followed her without hesitation. Lance was a few yards away, hovering just a few inches off the ground, limbs limp and face obscured by the charred shattered visor of his helmet. The two skidded and skated over the frost, clattering to their knees beside him.  
“Lance wake up! Lance!” Keith snatched the other young man up, cradled him against his chest while Pidge’s scanner light up his mode in a wave.  
“His suit’s been compromised by the blast! We have to get him out of here now!”

The mad dash back to Green went by in a rush. As soon as her hatch closed. Keith toppled to the ground, prying Lance’s helmet and chest plate off. Pidge threw herself into the pilot seat and lifted off, urging her lion faster and faster.  
Lance’s face was pale and ashy, his lips cracked and blue, his breathing shallow and irregular like a sputtering engine in a dying a car. His chest wasn’t even moving with it. Keith jammed his fist against the wall behind him, glad the compartment for storage was in the same place as he recalled in Red. He yanked the blanket out and started wrapping it around himself and Lance, held him tighter when Lance’s head fell limply against his chest.  
“He’s not even shivering, Pidge. What do I-what do I do?”  
“Just try to keep him warm! We’ll be there soon and he’ll be good as new!” Her voice was shrill, not confident at all. “He’s still alive so there’s still a chance to save him so just try to wake him up or something! I don’t know!” A screen lit up and Pidge was yelling frantically at someone on the communicator.  
Keith pulled Lance further into his lap, winced when he noticed the way Lance’s legs dragged and bent unnaturally, like the plating of his armor was the only thing keeping them straight. He reached out slowly, pressed at black material visible around his knees. It gave way with a wet crunching noise and Keith’s hand recoiled to cover his mouth, blocking him from getting sick all over both of them. His head was spinning, chest tight and limbs cold. Everything was so loud and Lance was so, so quiet. He folded the end of the blanket of the blue paladin’s legs and up over his own shoulders, engulfing them both. The heat was stifling but Lance’s face against his neck was like ice and Keith could feel the way his body absorbed the heat like a sponge. He rubbed his hands along Lance’s arms furiously, adding the friction heat as he pleaded quietly.  
“Come on Lance come on. Wake up. You gotta wake up. I know it’s bad but you gotta come back to us, Lance. Please please please.”

It really didn’t feel like the castle was getting any closer.


End file.
